Miss the campaign for The Gaia Complex - Hardware 2119? Fear not! You can still late pledge right now and receive your book alongside the Kickstarter fulfilment.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Progress Update 2
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 01:48:48 AM
Hi everyone!
I hope you're all doing great, keeping safe and managing to play some games.
It's been almost a month since we provided our first progress update, so I thought it was worth checking in again to give you a little insight as to what we've been doing!
Let's take a look at where we are with stuff:
As you can see, since our last update, we're still waiting on five Data Seeds from guest writers, but once received, they will conclude all the writing for the book. We've also completed another eight pieces of art, finishing off all the small art and smashing out five larger pieces, including two 2-page spreads!
Our guest artist, JJ Ariosa has turned in all of their commissioned pieces and Jesús has continued working through a number of larger art pieces. As of yesterday, all the artwork that had already been started or sketched has now been completed. Our next port of call is to start work on the headshots for those backers that pledged at the Merc Tech Trader tier, before tacking some of the gritty scenes in the book.
Previously we shared the advertising poster for GHOST-TAC Industrial, and mentioned that we were working on a size comparison image for the three models of GTS in the book. Here is that final image in all its glory. Time to upgrade your construction equipment!
As well as this GTS size comparison image, here are a couple of new additions to our opening hardware chapter, both illustrated by JJ Ariosa:
Over the next month, I'll be chasing up with our guest writers ("chasing up" is industry speak for "nagging over and over") to progress the final five pages of text so that we can move that content through editing, proofing and layout. We'll also be continuing to tick off artwork as we produce some backer headshots and plot out the next few scenes on the art list.
As well as the Hardware 2119 progress, I've also been plotting some content for Data Seeds Volume 4 (see volumes 1 through 3 here), which I hope to have ready for release in the next couple of months.
This also seems like a good time to answer a question that we've been asked quite a lot already: "Are you planning on releasing more books?". Firstly, we're super honoured that people are hankering for more content, even before this book has been released - it's an amazing feeling to have a passionate audience and it really means a lot to us. As for the question, the answer is yes! I've already started the overview for the next book and intend to start writing it in the next couple of months once any administrative work for Hardware 2119 is complete. The Gaia Complex: Evolution by Design will be coming to you in 2023 (we hope!). More details on that in the future.
Thanks for following our journey! We'll be back next month with another progress update and some more snippets of new content!
Big love,
Shep - Hansor Publishing.
Core book digital fulfilment
almost 3 years ago
– Sat, Apr 02, 2022 at 02:31:07 PM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
The Funds Are In - Progress Update 1
almost 3 years ago
– Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 03:04:36 PM
Hi everyone,
I hope you're all doing great!
Firstly, the funds from Kickstarter arrived in our account today. This is awesome news and means that we can push on with the project at full steam! The dice have already been ordered and I'm lining up a few other parts of the project logistics.
Next up, this update will form the first of our monthly(ish) progress updates. This is a process we followed with the core book campaign and it allows you all to track exactly where we are and what we're doing. We like transparency!
Given this is the first of these updates, we thought we'd give you as much detail as possible. So, without further hesitation, here is my progress tracking spreadsheet for you to see - full exposure on our progress.
Though it should be fairly obvious, green is completed, yellow is in progress and red is still to do. From a writing/editing/layout/proofing standpoint, you can see that this book is almost complete - WOOP!
The credits and contents pages will be the final thing to finalise and just five of the guest writers need to complete their work before this is considered entirely done from a written perspective.
From an art perspective, you can see the list of finished and 'to do' artwork. Anything highlighted blue is partially done by Jesús (meaning it is sketched ready to be coloured, or currently being coloured). Anything highlighted red is currently being done by JJ Ariosa. All layout has been completed with placeholder art where needed, so final art can just be dropped in when it is finished.
In future updates, in order to make this information easier to digest, I'll share a condensed version, which looks like this:
This table provides all of the info from the spreadsheet above in an easy to follow format. Large art is considered anything of a quarter page or larger and small art is anything smaller than a quarter page. Of the art still to do in the numbers above, 4 of the outstanding large art pieces are currently in progress, along with 1 of the small art pieces.
Hopefully a snapshot like this each month will help you feel excited about the book getting closer to completion!
Jesús is close to finishing up the artwork for the GHOST-TAC size comparison that we shared in a previous update. We love the art so much that we've done some creative layout work to free up space, allowing us to change this particular image form a half page to a beautifully detailed 2-page spread! In addition, as per one of our stretch goals, we've completed the adverting poster for the GHOST-TAC GTS Builder.
We're looking forward to showing you the full 2-page size comparison image for the GHOST-TAC range soon.
From here on out, this is what the process looks like:
I'll be working on getting pre-orders live, for those people that missed the campaign, later this week. I hoped to have had this done by now, but life got in the way.
Remaining art briefs will be written and assigned over the coming few weeks so we can push on with the art process.
I'll catch up with guest writers and complete the editing and layout process once final text is back. Those sections will then be sent for external proofing before we can consider the manuscript complete.
Over the next couple of months, I'll be speaking to the printer to address the paper price hike which has hit this month, as well as some freight cost concerns. I have plenty of time to investigate options, so this isn't a worry at this point.
We will launch a pledge manager (surveys via backerkit) in a few months time - we want to be closer to shipping before we collecting your shipping fees and info so that we can be as accurate as possible. We'll talk more about this process closer to the point of launching the surveys.
We'll make sure we check in roughly once a month with a progress update like this and to share some new art and snippets of the writing etc. If there is anything specific you'd like to see covered in a future update, please leave a comment below.
As always if you have any questions, comments or feedback, just send us a quick message and we'll get right back to you.
We've had a number of backers ask about fulfilment of digital rewards. Where Hardware 2119 is concerned, digital copies of the book will be fulfilled once the book is off to the printers. Where the core book is concerned, we will be fulfilling these digital rewards shortly so that you have the chance to get started with The Gaia Complex. We'll be in touch with backers that are due a digital copy of the core book in the near future, in order to obtain the information we need to fulfil these. Please bear with us while we get organised - we'll be in touch very soon.
Until next time, thanks for reading!
Big love,
Shep - Hansor Publishing.
Mission accomplished!
almost 3 years ago
– Thu, Mar 03, 2022 at 12:43:33 AM
Hey Mercs,
It's all over!
It's been a great last day for us and we're blown away by the response from you all. Thank you so much for your support.
So, what happens from here?
Here is a quick look at the upcoming process.
Kickstarter will be charging your cards around about now! If any payments fail, they'll try again later and then eventually contact you to try and correct the failed payment. If you have any issue with your payment, please let me know and I'll do my best to help you out.
That process, plus the clearing period takes around two weeks, at which point Kickstarter will send us the funds and can start doing stuff like commissioning a bit more art, stocking up on dice and paying a deposit to our printer.
Over the next few days, I'll be having a check-in with Jesús to get us both up to speed on the full progress of things and dish him out the next few art briefs. I'll also reach out to the guest writers that are working on the book and pester them to get writing!
If you were one of our three Merc Tech Trader backers, I'll be sending you a message in the next 24 hours to arrange obtaining some info and images to allow us to begin your custom artwork.
Over the next week or so, I'll share a detailed breakdown of what's in the the book, what is written, edited, proofed and illustrated. This will give you a full picture of the work left to do. I'll ensure we give you an update at least once per month and will share this project tracking info each time so you can see that we're making progress.
We will be launching pre-orders via BackerKit over the next couple of weeks, to allow people that missed the campaign to still get hold of the standard edition book (limited edition books will not be available through pre-order). We will not be launching the surveys/pledge manager until the book is off to print. This will allow us to charge accurate shipping costs close to the time we intend to ship. More on shipping nearer the time.
I'm going to get away from the screen for at least five minutes tonight and celebrate bringing a new book to life!
Expect to hear from us soon regarding progress and we'll confirm when we have the funds in hand and start moving on the next step.
One last time, THANK YOU all so much.
Big love,
Shep - Hansor Publishing.
A look at the Gear & Tech chapter
almost 3 years ago
– Wed, Mar 02, 2022 at 12:38:00 PM
The subtle hum of the wall-mounted heater blanketed the apartment in both warmth and white noise. Outside it was colder than usual, but with as much rain as every other night. The busy street was seventeen storeys below; a bustling flow of people stomping over rain-soaked paving slabs under a veneer of neon advertisements. Greta used the heater more to drown out the din of the outside world than she did to keep warm.
It was late, maybe 3am. Greta laid on top of the bed sheets with a dim table lamp illuminating the wall opposite the bed. Soft yellow shadows further warmed the apartment, casting a glow over the room’s minimalist furniture and an array of firearms laid out on the desk. Greta didn’t spend much time relaxing, in fact, she wasn’t sure what relaxing entailed. On a good night, she’d catch two or three hours of restless sleep, using her implants and enhancements to augment her lack of focus throughout the day. She was a slave to a vicious cycle. Greta closed her eyes, considering the job that she’d ducked out of tonight, wondering how much trouble Maddy and Carter had got themselves into. She could feel her eye-lids resisting being opened, sitting on the verge of entering the hypnagogic state, slowly drifting into tonight's limited hours of sleep.
BOOM.
With unexpected violence the door to the apartment exploded inwards ripping away from its hinges, the slab of wood and steel hitting the facing wall with such force that had someone been behind it, they would likely have been torn in two. Greta shot upright, eyes open, senses ignited. A moment of panic and shock was shattered by her neural combat enhancement kicking into overdrive. Scene analysis complete. Conclusion: arm yourself. Now.
Leaping from the bed to the floor, Greta sprawled towards the desk. Reaching upwards for whichever gun first met her hand, the sound of a silenced gunshot and the whistle of pressure from a passing round was delivered, side by side with sudden and searing pain. Momentary confusion set in. The adrenaline surge hit its peak, making it hard to separate a glancing blow from a piercing wound. Bodies piled through the doorway, blocking out the light from the corridor outside: four, five, six; an ocean of black tactical clothing, helmets and visors. Greta swung her hand out in front of her, but where she had hoped to find a trigger and high velocity projectile, there was instead a hole, bleeding vehemently, pouring crimson ichor down her arm, already forming a pool on the floor. Her little finger, crippled, was hanging from its joint. This had not been a glancing blow. Her pain receptors came alive with the sight of the wound. Open-mouthed, she grimaced and tried to let out a scream, but nothing came out.
Three more rounds struck home. Two in the left thigh, one just below the right knee. Greta’s scream was no longer silent. She rolled back onto the floor, unable to grab onto anything without agonising pain. Dizziness rose to her attention. A sudden wash of cold hit hard, overcoming the artificial heating of the room. The light began to fade in her eyes. Consciousness escaping. Greta Lassar was dying.
To be continued....
Hi all,
Time for another little insight to one of our upcoming chapters - the hardware catalogue!
With all the stretch goals related to this chapter unlocked I've been frantically working on the remaining content and can confirm that our opening Gear and Tech chapter runs a total of 54 pages! Here is a view of what we expect the final contents list for the chapter (and the rest of the book) to look like. Note that the page numbers towards the end of the book may alter slightly pending us unlocking those last few Data Seeds.
Our Gear and Tech chapter follows the same format as our core book, providing some details, lore and 'fluff' about each entry, plus a rules/stat block and a scattering of artwork throughout. Here are a couple of example spreads from the completed chapter:
The equipment in this chapter represents a flurry of newly available gear, from a range of new and existing corporations and manufacturers. Almost every category of gear from the core book has been expanded, so whether you're a Core Hacker, Operator or just a Tech Trader needing some new gear to sell on the black market, this book has you covered!
Speaking of new gear, this seems a good place to share the full wrap art for our limited edition cover, suitably titled 'Gun Wall':
Last night saw us unlock our £10.5k stretch goal, which gives a whooping three additional pages to the Corporate Insight chapter; a chapter that we previous discussed here.
This unlock allows me to include a couple of additional corporate overviews that I couldn't squeeze in, as well as putting back a little content that I had to cut from the more detailed corporate analysis sections due to hitting the page count limit. This stretch goal was really important to me as it means I've been able to include everything I 'really' wanted to see in the book. Thank you all for making this happen.
I've already made a start on writing the outstanding content for this chapter and expect to be done with it over the coming week, ready for editing and proofing.
We are now closing in on the last few days, which means it's more important than ever to pull as many eyes onto what we're creating as possible. Thank you for all the shares, promo and kind words that I've seen around social media and on various forums - it's so amazing to see people talking about The Gaia Complex. If you feel included to give it one last share with your friends, Twitter followers or cyberpunk-obsessed granny, then please do! Every share is a potential backer and that brings us ever closer to those last few goals!
